To the editor:
On December 14, Christiane Amanpour, broadcasting from the London studio of her PBS/CNN television news program, interviewed Magen Inon, an Israeli peace activist, and Hamze Awawde, the Palestinian regional leader of the group Hands of Peace. Inon’s parents were killed in the Hamas attacks on October 7, and many of Awawde’s friends and relatives have been killed by Israeli military violence in the years before and the weeks after October 7.
The two men had met only recently at a peace vigil in London. Each man has a six-and-a-half-year-old son. They say that violence will not solve the long-standing problems caused by the 17-year blockade of Gaza and the 56-year occupation of the West Bank.
Inon: “… the billions in military aid did not keep my parents safe. That’s the truth. And I think if I want, for my family in Israel and my friends in Israel to be safe, there needs to be some kind of a political solution. So, the effort should go in that direction … people should realize that the vast majority of people in Israel-Palestine want to live their life at peace, and they want their kids to play football.”
Awawde: “… what’s happening now is the biggest service for Hamas. Whoever is thinking killing people will weaken Hamas [has] really never understood anything from history… most of the [current Hamas] fighters are the orphans of the previous wars. And the orphans of this war will be the soldiers of the next war. So, if we need to eradicate Hamas, I mean, genuinely and successfully, we have to change the circumstances. We have to show people a different vision.”
President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken speak in Orwellian double-talk on the tragic situation in Israel-Palestine. They seem incapable of showing the world a different vision, and of using U.S. leverage on Israel to begin to implement it.
They must tell the Israeli government that all further military support from the U.S. will cease immediately and that a condition of further U.S. economic aid will be a firm Israeli commitment to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as voted repeatedly recently by large majorities in the United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly.
This time there needs to be a permanent ceasefire after prompt negotiation—via an intermediary like Qatar—of staged releases of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and of the many Palestinian prisoners held without charge in indefinite detention in Israeli jails.
By his behavior in this matter, President Biden is committing electoral suicide and promoting the reelection of Donald Trump.
John Breasted
Great Barrington
